The invention relates to a sorting apparatus for flat blanks, e.g. paper sheets, to be checked e.g. for specific quality features or defects, and more particularly, top quality papers, such as art papers, security papers for cheques, banknotes, etc.
Such sorting apparatuses appropriately have at least one movement path for the individually following blanks, which during the passage differ optically or according to specific criteria and e.g. are so separated that blanks with specific features are separated from at least one group not having such features. In order to increase the throughput of the sorting apparatus, at least initially, the blanks are moved in at least two juxtaposed paths and sorting can simultaneously take place in juxtaposed manner on all the paths.
Such sorting apparatuses suffer from the disadvantage that adjacent blanks can only be moved on together at the sorting point, e.g. sorted out, even if only a single blank has the corresponding feature. Therefore the thus sorted out blanks subsequently have to be manually resorted to bring about a clear separation according to categories. If e.g. sorting is based on defects, then in the case of a twin operating procedure per sorting process the amount of waste is increased by twice what is necessary if only one blank has a defect during each sorting process. The aforementioned subsequent sorting is complicated, cost-intensive and error-prone, because it requires high concentration.